While I am learning a lot from reading books in my target age-range, I have taken a few bits of advice and started learning from the writing community as well. I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) which I have read over and over is a key step in the right direction if you want to get published. I have been e-mailing a local (WA-state) author and she recommended the SCBWI Western WA conference coming up in April and I jumped on this opportunity and signed up! I am very excited about this and hope to learn a lot and make new friends. Our local SCBWI coordinator mentioned that there is a chapter of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) which meets on the second Monday of each month and I attended that get together this week. They have a different topic for discussion at each meeting and this month it was story structure which was very informative.
I am continuing to find new (to me) book series that are similar to the type of book I am writing. It is interesting to see which titles I can find at our local Barnes and Noble. Some series, even though there are many installments (some as recent as last year) do not have a lot of copies on the shelves. I read somewhere that you should go to a bookstore (not a library) when looking for books to research that are in your age range/genre because there you will find out which ones are most poular/sell the best. Now the key is to figure out what makes one series sell better than another. For example why is Judy Moody more popular than the Mallory series? I'm sure there are many reasons for this, hopefully with the #1 reason being good writing. But it could also have to do with marketing, presentation of the books, and other things along those lines.
I am continuing to find new (to me) book series that are similar to the type of book I am writing. It is interesting to see which titles I can find at our local Barnes and Noble. Some series, even though there are many installments (some as recent as last year) do not have a lot of copies on the shelves. I read somewhere that you should go to a bookstore (not a library) when looking for books to research that are in your age range/genre because there you will find out which ones are most poular/sell the best. Now the key is to figure out what makes one series sell better than another. For example why is Judy Moody more popular than the Mallory series? I'm sure there are many reasons for this, hopefully with the #1 reason being good writing. But it could also have to do with marketing, presentation of the books, and other things along those lines.
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